Tercer Grado (Geoffrey Cowper, 2015) : Spain

Reviewed by Jessie Su. Viewed at Antioch University, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2016.

Tercer Grado, or in English Day Release, is the first film Geoffrey Cowper directed. It is full of gore, violence, action and drama. If one is into rough, brutal fight scenes this is your movie. The story in Tercer Grado was entertaining, but I found the cinematography a bit awkward. It was a good change rooting for a criminal who turns out to be a good guy in the end. It gives a different perspective of life where sometimes to be good, you’ve got to be bad.

The movie starts off with Mark Rodríguez, played by Jesús Lloveras, in a car with a stripper Mia, played by Sara Casasnovas. Throughout the film, they seem to be obsessed with smoking cigarettes – giving it your European culture. Cowper seems to make it a vivid point to continuously film Mia’s rear. Mark is released on parole for a weekend after being in prison for five years. During his stay in prison, his mother fell ill so his brother Toni Rodríguez, played by Javier Beltrán, has to take care of her and neglect his career. Unfortunately, their mother passes away and Toni is left in debt and at risk of losing their house. With bitter resentment, he yells at Mark and kicks him out of the house. There is, however, a sense of longing for Mark in a scene with Toni shortly thereafter. Mark feels guilty and wants to make it up to Toni somehow. He witnesses a robbery and decides to steal the robber’s money in hopes of redeeming himself for abandoning his family. He runs into grave difficulties and his only hope is for Mia to help.

As I recall from the Q&A session after the film, the director  seemed to enjoy lighting things up, and they could only do the car explosion once. Cowper’s use of music and sound effects greatly added to the film’s sense of danger. I did not enjoy the unnecessary extreme close ups on insignificant objects. The audio was sometimes too sharp with also unnecessary sound effects that annoyed me. The story and plot was rough and tumble and outstanding. It felt realistic with none of that super-hero bravado or unrealistic action. I appreciated how the director shot a fly in three scenes and made it a point to insert a fly sound effect for it. I later had the chance to run into Cowper in a restaurant and he informed of this. The fly originally was not intentional. The hot weather and sweaty actors attracted the flies. The fly sound effect, however was intentional.

Tercer Grado was a great action film, and the beating rock music and emotionally sad music by Dani Trujillo empowered the film. It shows us that the rich, well dressed high class Caucasians are not always the good guys. And, the story of a person and his circumstances sometimes defines a man’s duties as a brother. A bad guy can also be a hero. Don’t be too quick to judge.